Why men love cars so much? |25 November 2013
Most men see cars as a sense of freedom and adventure and develop personal relationship with them
Why men love cars so much? Why do they often take better care of their cars than their women? Let us plunge in and tackle the love of men for cars.
Love at first sight!
What do cars give men? A sense of freedom and adventure is a highly recognised answer among both men and women. The power and freedom men and women feel when a machine follows their commands is a main driving factor for love of cars. Moreover, it is not easy for most men today to buy the dream car, and they work hard to make it happen. Thus, it becomes something they’ve been waiting and working for, which is why they feel passionate about it and when they achieve it they love it… and take care of it. This can give some hints to many women out there wondering about the best approach to hold the man’s attention and affection.
It always makes you feel comfortable, when it’s the right car…but isn’t it the same with the right woman?
Men develop personal relationship with their cars faster than women because they perceive their car as an extension while women don’t. Women do experience that for example with their homes – they see the house as an extension of their being. For most women a car is a separate entity. For women it is a convenience, what the car can do for them, for men is more like a sentient being they need to get to know and respond to – men love cars, that’s it. Don’t get mad ladies. It is somewhat sad that men feel that way about their cars, but there is an explanation to that.
According to a BMW study, men feel like they have nothing to prove to and feel completely relaxed while driving their car. If you think about it, it is not the same with their woman. Most men feel constantly pressured to prove and justify themselves in front of a woman. And this feeling intensifies even more when they get married. Although many would argue that, it is the truth and it applies to women too. Therefore, developing this personal relationship with their cars, men easily differentiate it from the personal relationship with a woman as easier to maintain and still satisfactory. Moreover, by owning the car of their dreams – often a high performance, luxury vehicle – most men equate it with them and take pride in their car.
A man’s opinion: “I like to listen to my car. You can hear when the turbo clicks in – that vacuum-cleaner effect. You can just feel the giddy up effect, and the sensation of power is brilliant – you can feel it through the steering wheel and the back of the seat.”
A man can rarely find the right words to explain how he feels about a woman, yet he can be very expressive about his car because it is a different type of love. Both type of relationships, with a woman and with a car, are discovered slowly and deepened with the time. In both relationships, development raises more questions, but with the car, questions often don’t demand an answer instantly. The response a man gets from his car is mechanical in its nature and yet it speaks on an emotional level. There is clicking, gear shifting and tire screeching, sounds men often describe with purring that makes them happy. In a relationship with the woman they love, the discovery process is more interactive which involves more effort as women are not easy to please at all. Women acknowledge that and yet it can’t be changed because women are highly emotional and intellectual beings who like to show it. No matter how easy going a woman’s personality is, the relationship demands a lot of work to maintain and unfortunately a big percentage of men are not ready to put in the effort. So, the car becomes their perfect match on many levels.
Every day…we are driving and loving it!
Driving your car in general is intimate and individual experience. They can only feel them, share, and enjoy the fact that they are not pressured to do that and not getting a response from their car only strengthen the personal relationship. Moreover, the way a car looks and feels partly determines how we feel and drive. Sounds familiar maybe ladies?
So, having the control and familiarity when driving your car is a pleasurable experience that makes the seemingly unemotional men to be strongly attached to their car. This explains why when moving men are ten times more likely to ship a car, rather than sell it. To most men the car becomes their moving house, their second home that can be shown yet remain private. Many would say that this love for cars in men comes down to control, yet it is an emotional relationship.
From the men themselves
“Since not having a car I’ve had to rely on public transport to take me where I want to go, having to sit near people I don’t know on a seat where I have no idea who sat there before me.” In a bus I even have to look at the back of people’s heads for the whole trip while in a car I can look anywhere I want at my own pace with no obstruction in my line of vision.”
“I haven’t seen any friends since the loss of my car, most of them live in the same district as me. I like knowing that at any moment I can just jump in my car and go wherever I want. I could go to Takamaka or to the extreme north of Mahe just for a drive if I wanted to. While if I want to do that in a bus I will first have to wait for hours to finally get one; it will take hours to reach there as it is stopping at every turn to either take on or disembark a passenger.”
“Sometimes I just cruise around in Victoria with my arms resting on the window sill. Some girls are really attracted to men in fancy cars so it’s my way of getting girls.”
“I drive around in my cars playing music as loud as I can. I feel good listening to music in my car. While if at home my wife will never stop shouting at me to turn down the volume.”
“Some men have this perception that one is rich when one owns a car. This is totally stupid. How can one goes round in a car when his stomach is empty?”
Women also like cars but …
Not that women don't love cars. They do, but in a different way. You won't read about a rich female who squanders huge amounts of her money acquiring a stable of cars (unless she is in love with her chauffeur) but footballers who spend fortunes on car after car when they hardly have the time to drive one are commonplace.
If I ask a woman what her first car was, she can always tell me. Chances are she gave it a name, drove it for years and cried when she had to sell it. It is equally likely that she didn't keep it very clean and never polished it, and that it is always full of odds and ends, pillows, spare shoes, kids' stuff, rubbish of all kinds. When a woman drives her husband's cars, she is usually on notice that a scratch, spilt food and drink on carpet or upholstery, ash in the ashtray means she will never be allowed to drive it again. His car is part of her husband's self-image; her car is her dear friend and helper, her supermarket trolley, her baby-carriage. He would rather take the bus than be seen at the wheel of her grubby hatch-back; she pilots his gleaming Hyundai through double-parked streets with her heart in her mouth.
Much as he might love his car, no man weeps when he sells it on for a better one. With his new car his youth is renewed; its increased performance endows him with vigour.
Women can be neglectful of their cars, and forget to put water in radiators, refill the washer tanks, replenish the oil or put air in tyres but they don't deliberately mistreat them. You won't hear women boasting about how they wrote off a car or blew up its engine. The woman who drives a hundred miles with the handbrake on or the choke out, or leaves the lights on and flattens the battery, can feel nothing but guilt and embarrassment. Men who write off or blow up cars do so deliberately and glory in the deed, stupid and destructive though it clearly is.
A man who can never remember to use a lavatory brush or swill the shaving lather out of the hand-basin will devote litres of water to washing his car. He will hose out the wheel-arches and remove every last insect corpse from the windscreen and the trim, and then leather off every inch of the paintwork so that not so much as a water-spot dims its radiance. A man who cannot tell you what colour his wife's eyes are will be able to tell you all the specifications of his motor. He will know how it measures up against all the cars in its price range, year or model, and be able to prove that he is not the kind of wally who buys the wrong car.
In fact, this love affair starts long before puberty, when a baby boy meets his first wheeled toy and knows that it represents something that makes him go faster. The little girl may know it too, but she is less likely to care.
A man who can never remember to use a lavatory brush or swill the shaving lather out of the hand-basin will devote litres of water and washing liquids to washing his car